


How Can the World Want Me to Change? (they're the ones that stay the same)

by AngeNoir



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Incest, M/M, Moving In Together, Multi, Parent/Child Incest, Relationship Negotiation, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-16
Updated: 2014-08-16
Packaged: 2018-02-13 08:48:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2144475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngeNoir/pseuds/AngeNoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As much as they looked forward to the day when their lives weren't constantly in danger from a Kaiju attack... how could the world ever accept their relationship?</p><p>(Did it matter if the world did or did not?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Can the World Want Me to Change? (they're the ones that stay the same)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heeroluva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heeroluva/gifts).



“Yance.”

Yancy looked up from his console with an easy smile. “Hey, Herc.”

Hercules didn’t return the smile – he wasn’t very demonstrative in general, and rarely smiled, but Yancy could see the tension in Hercules’ eyes and face. Letting his face turn serious, Yancy wheeled his chair away from the desk and faced Hercules. “What’s up, Hercules?”

“My boy’s getting – my boy’s getting better. And Raleigh’s already helping disassemble the Shatterdome, getting the scientists shipped out, helping Mako take care of stuff while Stacker’s still out.”

Yancy nodded. “What’s the problem?”

Hercules let out a hard breath, muttering under his breath before saying shortly, “The Jaeger program’s closed out. And the public already thinks of pilots as messed up in the head. There will be a lot of vicious talk about us sharing space; our relationship can’t be in the open, not without having harsher things than talk aimed at us.”

That was the thing about Hercules; he was quiet, but blunt. No dancing around the topic. Yancy sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, running a thumb nervously over the scars. “Yeah,” he said softly. “I know.”

Hercules shifted a little, and Yancy knew it was difficult for him to talk about this – to talk about feelings, the future. They’d spent so much time living in the moment, knowing every call may be their last. Hell, Yancy lived with it every day, lived every moment knowing Raleigh and Chuck and Hercules could die like he’d almost died all those years ago. Hercules and Raleigh and Chuck – they never talked about tomorrow, only ever today. Yancy had found himself in the position of having to be the cautious one, a role he wasn’t really accustomed to even now, all these years later.

Clearing his throat, he wheeled himself over to the side of their monster bed – they always came back to Yancy and Raleigh’s room, because while the entire base had wheelchair access, this room was the most comfortable and having a big bed could be explained away by Yancy’s lingering pain and muscle spasms. Oh, it wasn’t as if the entire base was unaware where the four of them slept at night, but the brass and general public didn’t know, and they were the people who squinted and nitpicked on expenses like large, comfortable beds in a military operation. Getting a second bed, even for a long-time veteran of the Jaeger program like Hercules Hansen, was out of the question. In any case, since everyone came back to this room, Yancy had had to keep his secrets a little bit more hidden than he normally would have if it was just Raleigh sharing the room (Chuck was a nosy bastard). Lifting up the edge of the mattress, he slid his free hand under to grope for the file he’d been putting together.

“Little old to be keeping porn mags under the bed, aren’t you?” Hercules said in that low drawl that tightened things in Yancy’s chest.

Yancy cleared his throat and pulled out the file. “You guys give me hell enough for worrying about the future,” he jibed back. “I wasn’t going to have this out in the open where anyone could find it.”

Hercules huffed and moved over to the side of the bed, sitting down so he wasn’t looming over Yancy’s shoulder to look at what was in the file. “What is it?” he asked.

Yancy played his fingers over the edge of the chair, fiddling with the rubber of the tire. “Something I’ve been… putting together. A pipe dream. Something to look forward to, when it ended. If it ever ended, but it did, now, so maybe… maybe it isn’t so farfetched anymore.”

Flipping through the pages of the file, Hercules didn’t say anything, eyes trained on the words and pictures. Finally, he looked up and Yancy uncomfortably met his eyes.

“The first one of these is dated in the 20s.”

Yancy swallowed past the nervousness and uncertainty. “Yeah,” he said, and his voice came out a lot hoarser and pained than he had wanted it to. Clearing this throat, he said again, “Yeah. They were – I found out I’d never walk again, and I couldn’t drift. Raleigh… wasn’t in the best of places. I wanted… I wanted out. I wanted to be gone.”

Unexpectedly, Hercules reached out and gently took Yancy’s hand, rubbed a calloused thumb over Yancy’s knuckles. “I’m not blaming you, Yance. I’m… surprised.” He stopped, seemed to consider how and what to say, before continuing, “We all – we all know the dangers, the problems, the death that we face, and when you stare that in the face, a lot of pilots find other occupations. A lot of pilots never expected Raleigh to get back in the suit. Never expected you to shift gears and become a part of LOCCENT instead of leaving the program.”

Yancy narrowed his eyes at Hercules. “We didn’t join up to become – to be hotshots, like ‘a lot of pilots’,” he began hotly, but Hercules’ soft chuckle brought his defense to a halt.

“I know. Hell, even Chuck knows, if the whiny brat could ever admit to it. But it was still a surprise. Even more for me, now, knowing you seriously researched this.” Hercules paused, looked back down at the file again. “Knowing you kept looking.”

“I hoped,” Yancy mumbled, and he knew he wasn’t _that_ much younger than Hercules, not compared to the other two in this relationship, but Hercules had a way of making Yancy feel safe enough to feel and act like he was actually his age instead of ten years older.

Hercules nodded. “We’ll bring this up to Chuck and Raleigh, then, but that doesn’t solve the initial problem.”

Yancy sighed and shifted in his seat, trying to relieve the pain in his spine that was starting to flare up. “It doesn’t, but – do you really think the world will care? Will notice? If we live together in one house and just… never leave?”

“I think the media already speculates on the ‘interpersonal relationships’ Jaeger copilots have,” Hercules muttered. “And after everything we sacrificed, I don’t particularly want to have to deal with the media dragging what we have through the muck and tearing us down.”

That gave Yancy pause, because there was a difference between not knowing how to deal with something and not _wanting_ to deal with something. “Do you… want to have different arrangements?” he asked, and it was good Hercules came to him with this before going to Chuck or Raleigh, because for all the two of them acted like nothing could touch them, they were far more sensitive – particularly to Hercules’ approval or disapproval – than Yancy was himself.

“I think we’ll need some kinda different approach if—” Hercules stopped, squinting at Yancy, and then he let out his breath in a twist between a sigh and a snarl. “Dammit, Yance, I don’t want to end this. I wasn’t even thinking of doing it. Alright?”

“Oh.” Yancy felt a light flush creeping into his cheeks. “Alright.”

“Y’damned fool,” Hercules muttered, but he leaned forward and hugged Yancy as best he could when Yancy was in his chair. Then he paused and leaned back. “Your muscles are really tense. You feeling okay? What’s your pain level?”

Wincing, Yancy seesawed his hand in the air. “I could – I could maybe go for a hot bath or something. It’s like… a six, maybe.”

“Well, shit, son,” Hercules said, standing up. “We’ll talk later, when Chuck and Raleigh can be a part of it. For now, let’s get your muscles loosened, what d’ya say?”

Since both Chuck and Hercules were actually really awesome at massaging Yancy’s body and easing out some of the chronic pain to more manageable levels (though Chuck was a bit better at it, not that Yancy would ever really _tell_ Chuck that), Yancy nodded eagerly, and the file – and the uncertainty of their shared future – was put aside.

***

“What the hell is this?”

Yancy looked up from his console – one of the very few left in the LOCCENT Mission Control, alongside Tendo’s and Mira’s – and frowned at Chuck. “What?” he asked, confused.

Chuck threw a file folder on Yancy’s desk, and sheets went fluttering out. “You planning on just up and disappearing?” he demanded, voice cruel. “Gonna hide and lick your wounds? Rest on your fucking laurels? What is this shit? Why is it hiding in your room? And why the hell would Raleigh play dumb about it?”

Heaving a sigh, Yancy wheeled himself back and fixed Chuck with a stern glare. “Maybe ‘cause he doesn’t know anything about it?” he said pointedly.

“It was in your room!” Chuck snarled.

“I think it’s time for a coffee break, Choi,” Mira murmured, standing up and dragging Tendo out of Mission Control.

Yancy nodded briefly at the two of them before turning his attention back to Chuck. “We can’t live in Shatterdomes for the rest of our lives, especially since they’re _disassembling_ all of them now,” he said pointedly.

Chuck paused and glanced at the scattered sheets. “What…?” he started, confused, before trailing off.

Grumbling under his breath, Yancy grabbed Chuck’s hand and smoothed his thumb over Chuck’s palm. “It was going to be a surprise, I guess. Something we talked about, together. Herc already came to me with worries. It was… I was supposed to explain it in a good way. Not like this.”

Chuck looked around the room almost unobtrusively, but Yancy – being the only one of their foursome currently not a Jaeger pilot and therefore the one who had to watch all of them carefully for their tells – really _looked_ at Chuck, saw the too-pale lips and the slight trembling in Chuck’s shoulder, the careful way he held his upper body and kept his right arm tucked close to his chest. “Dammit,” Yancy sighed, and let go of Chuck’s hand to gesture angrily at the nearest chair – Tendo’s. “Sit down. You just got released from med-bay, didn’t you? Or at least became such an insufferable nuisance that they discharged you even if you aren’t ready.”

“I’m fine,” Chuck said in that pissy way of his, and if Yancy hadn’t had three years to adapt to the insufferable prick, he’d have slapped Chuck. As it was, he fixed Chuck with an unforgiving stare.

With ill-grace, Chuck stumbled his way to the chair and lowered himself into it. He didn’t look much better, but at least he wouldn’t be collapsing any time soon. When Yancy was sure Chuck wasn’t too badly off, he began picking up the different sheets, staring at the pictures topping each page for a moment. Finally, he looked up at Chuck and sighed. “If you’re out of the med-bay, I guess now’s the time to talk about it. We’ll meet up in our room later, okay? Right now, I know Herc’s still helping organize this mess, and I know Raleigh’s out there helping do manual labor.”

“Asshole,” Chuck grumbled.

Yancy snorted. “Yeah, okay bud, whatever you say. You can sit here if you want – Tendo, Mira, and I are backing up all the hard drives and shit – or you can stagger your way back to our room and take advantage of the nice soft bed like you should have been doing in the first place.”

Chuck grunted and folded his arms across his chest, even when his eyes crinkled in pain. “I’m fine. I don’t need to rest.”

Yancy sighed. “Right.” Chuck was the most stubborn asshole he knew; he got that Chuck felt the need to prove himself, being the youngest Jaeger pilot ever and constantly standing in his father’s shadow, but sometimes Yancy got tired of micromanaging Chuck’s moods.

When Tendo and Mira came back, Tendo complained about having Chuck in the room – specifically in Tendo’s chair – but when Chuck glowered and Yancy calmly pointed out there were other chairs stacked at the back of the room, he subsided. The three of them moved quickly through the numerous databanks, and they got into it enough that when Raleigh’s hand fell on Yancy’s shoulder, it was a surprise that made Yancy startle.

“Whoa, hey, bro, just me,” Raleigh murmured, patting Yancy’s back. “Man, your muscles are really bad, huh? We ought to…” Raleigh trailed off, staring past the console to where Chuck was. “What the hell is Chuck doing up here? I thought he had at least a week left in the med-bay.”

“As if anyone could put up with that snot-nosed brat,” Tendo muttered.

Yancy gave him a sharp glare, even as Raleigh let out a frustrated sigh. “Yeah, that’s probably what happened,” Raleigh grunted, moving over to the chair where Chuck was slumped over, snoring lightly. For all that the four of them were sleeping together, Chuck and Raleigh were uneasy with one another. Raleigh wasn’t that much older than Chuck, but it was enough, and though Yancy would be the first to tell anyone about how immature Raleigh was, the sad fact was that Chuck, who had grown up around techs and officers and never had any real attention, was way more immature in his own way. Still, Raleigh would give his life for Chuck, and Yancy had seen Chuck take people down for sneering at Raleigh for the year after Yancy’s accident when he’d gone off the rails.

Yancy closed down his console’s tasks and picked up the file sitting to the side, while Raleigh shook Chuck awake. Chuck muttered and mumbled, bleary-eyed and not all the way awake as Raleigh gently got Chuck up and out of the chair, supporting the slightly smaller male as they made their way out the door.

“See you guys around,” Yancy said, propelling himself after them.

“Hey, Becket?”

Yancy paused, wheeling a bit to look back at Mira.

“You have a good life, you hear? With the people who make you happy.”

Yancy smiled. “We intend to, Hasan. You too. And you, Choi.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tendo grumbled. “Go off to your den of iniquity and leave us here.”

Laughing, Yancy rolled himself out of the room and down to the lifts, making his way levels down to where his room was. When he entered, he saw that he was the last – Herc was already there, stripped down to nothing but boxers, and he and Raleigh were carefully peeling Chuck out of his clothes without aggravating still-healing wounds.

“So you wanna explain that folder now?” Chuck muttered, but his voice was more petulant and tired than angry.

Hercules flushed a little – he always took it personal when Chuck was a dick, when he really didn’t need to apologize for his son’s shortcomings. His neediness, maybe, but not Chuck’s shortcomings.

Raleigh blinked and looked away from undressing Chuck. “Folder?” he asked.

Yancy let out a sigh and took the file from his lap to set it gently on the bed. “I – well, we’re not going to live here forever. Eventually, this place will come down – probably within the next month, two months tops. Then what?”

“What do you mean, then what?” Raleigh asked, and the question made Yancy sigh in annoyance. Raleigh almost always lived entirely in the moment, which made planning ahead a real handicap that Mako had to compensate for often.

“He means,” Chuck said, anger seeping back into his voice, “we’re gonna have to split.”

Raleigh’s eyes went shocked, even as Hercules rubbed the back of his neck. “Now, no one’s saying that, not yet.”

“You’re thinking it, though. Hell, you’ve been thinking of heading off and disappearing for five years now. All throughout our years together, too,” Chuck growled.

Tentatively opening the file, Raleigh’s fingers brushed over the topmost page – the one with the earliest date, barely three months after that fateful day in February that stole the use of Yancy’s legs and left him with twisted nerves, horrific scars, and chronic pain that could be debilitating at times. On the page, the picture of a small, homey-looking cottage set deep in the middle of a warm, sunlit forest sat on top of prices, descriptions of the interior, specs, and history of the house.

“You were looking to leave?” Raleigh asked, quietly, and Yancy let out an irritated sigh.

“No,” he replied, a touch impatient with everyone always assuming things. “I was looking for _us_ to leave.”

His three partners looked at him, and he fought not to squirm under those heavy gazes. After a few moments, Raleigh said slowly, “You wanted… us to leave?”

“I wanted us to have a home,” Yancy said, picking up one of the sheets and looking at the one-story wooden building, the large yard in the front, the tall trees for privacy. “I wanted… I wanted that, when this was done, it was _done_. I wanted to go back to a home and just… live. No more emergencies. No more catastrophes.” Yancy looked over at them. “And I wanted… I wanted all of you, too.”

“Which brings us to another problem,” Hercules said with a sigh.

Chuck and Raleigh turned their heads to look at Hercules – Chuck with suspicion, Raleigh with worry. “What now?” Chuck demanded.

“Do you remember that brother and sister team, outta Saudi Arabia?” Hercules said, voice solemn.

Yancy winced, because now he knew what Hercules meant by vicious talk. The brother and sister team had guarded part of the Indian Ocean and much of Africa’s eastern coastline. Solar Prophet had been a stellar team, until the media had gotten hold of the fact that the pilots not only were brother and sister, but lived together, rarely went alone anywhere, shared the same room, and in some cases – particularly when on PR junkets that were the big thing back when the Jaeger program was still fresh and new – those hotel rooms only had one bed. In the western world, that would have been scandalous, and lewd remarks and catcalls would follow; in the Middle East, it exploded. In the end, Solar Prophet was decommissioned and the brother committed suicide; the sister disappeared from the public eye entirely. The media had always been fascinated at picking apart the heroes who volunteered for the incredibly dangerous and risky job as Jaeger pilots. More than one pilot had had their career and life ruined by the media taking a shine to them and then tearing said pilot into pieces because of some character flaw somewhere.

But… “Why should it matter?” Yancy said.

Raleigh cocked his head at Yancy. “It kinda does, though. If we want – if we don’t want to be arrested, you know. If we want to live in peace.”

“A lot of those houses are in isolated places, you know. And no one’s gonna look down on war heroes for retreating from the world.”

“The media isn’t going to just let us go,” Chuck said, and his voice was sharp and sarcastic, but his face was serious. “So the question really is, when we find a place, are we going to live together as a group and, I dunno, pair off somehow, or are we just going to go our separate ways?”

“I think there are a few more choices than those two,” Hercules began, but Yancy shook his head.

“No, we’re gonna do this our way, not theirs,” Yancy said heatedly. “I’m not losing any of you because of the media. We’ll handle it. Chuck can handle the media, and I know Raleigh and Herc aren’t that great with mics in their face but that just means Chuck and I will handle it. We’ll live together and fuck anyone who says anything.”

Raleigh tapped a finger impatiently. “And arrests?”

“They’ll need proof for an arrest, and you guys are heroes. Not a lot of people will want to arrest you guys anyway.”

Hercules smoothed his hand over his thigh – a nervous tell, Yancy knew. “It’s not that simple,” he finally said.

“It really, really is,” Yancy replied immediately.

Chuck flipped through the pages again. “Look, if it’s a plausible story we need to come up with – we’re just used to living in one another’s pockets. Shatterdomes have been our lives pretty much always. You’ve lived in one for five years; we’ve lived in one for ten. It’s believable that we’d want that same closeness in the rest of our lives. And with the Kaiju threat gone, our pensions… they’re nothing to sneeze at, but neither are they all that great, so all of us sharing the cost of a home… it’s not inconceivable. And the gossips? We’ll just ignore them. S’not like we’re overly affectionate in public anyway. Not a lot of behaviors to curtail.”

“We can make it work, Herc,” Raleigh said, voice warm and easy. “Private stuff will stay private. Hell, Yancy will probably work from home, and I’m sure you won’t be leaving the house, either. You’re too much a homebody. There won’t be anyone really out in the limelight anyway.”

Hercules folded his arms. “We shouldn’t have to hide. That’s not who we are.”

Chuck shifted forward and winced – he really shouldn’t be out of the med-bay, Yancy thought distractedly. Both Raleigh and Herc leaned in to help Chuck settle back, soothing Chuck’s grimace of pain with soft touches and murmurs. Before Herc could pull away, though, Chuck linked fingers in Herc’s collar and kissed him, gentle and slow. “That’s sweet, da,” Chuck said. “But we wouldn’t be hiding. Not to the people who matter.”

Hercules flushed a deep rose around his ears and the back of his neck, and then Raleigh was leaning over Chuck to kiss Hercules’ ears, and then Chuck was pawing at Hercules’ boxers. Yancy rolled his wheelchair over to the side of the bed and began to strip, wanting to join in without making them break for him – but within moments, calloused fingers were sliding along his skin, helping him ease out of his shirt, and while he guarded his independence fiercely, this was one of those things he’d learned how to compromise on, understand that they were not helping him because he needed it, but because they wanted to.

Soon enough, Yancy found himself stretched out on their king bed, naked and surrounded by the naked flesh of his lovers. He wasn’t ever as mobile as the other three, but considering that Chuck was still recovering, it would be the first time that they really would be breaking into two groups, since Chuck couldn’t exactly arrange himself in the positions they normally favored.

As it was, Raleigh was naked, braced on all fours to Yancy’s right, and Herc slowly pumped fingers deep inside the younger male. Raleigh was far too close to coming than he really should be (probably because of the long wait for Chuck to be better, but still), and Herc crooned soft words of reassurance as he stroked Raleigh’s flank and continued to stretch him open. Next to Yancy, with Raleigh between them, Chuck was naked save for the brace on his left knee, new scars fresh pink in the low, mellow light.

How this normally worked wasn’t exactly simple, but neither was it overly complex – normally, because Yancy couldn’t really sit upright without having pillows to prop him up, the three of his lovers rotated – one got sucked off by him, another rode him, and yet another fucked his thighs or his asshole, depending on his legs and their spasms and whether it was a good or bad day. He also liked to watch – sometimes, if his spasms in his legs were really bad, either the one Yancy had sucked off or the one that had ridden Yancy got fucked instead, and Yancy loved watching that almost as much as he loved participating. Hercules, in general, didn’t enjoy bottoming, not even from the top, so he was almost always either the one Yancy sucked off or the one that fucked Yancy’s thighs or ass. Chuck and Raleigh were more versatile and less picky, even if Chuck was dramatic as hell about it.

In any case, this time they couldn’t do it that way. Chuck was in no medical state to do anything except lie back, like Yancy. In fact, Raleigh was being prepped for Yancy’s dick, and Chuck was watching avidly because his father had promised to ream open his ass and he couldn’t wait. Herc was a slow and patient lover; unlike Raleigh, he wouldn’t strain Chuck’s still-healing wounds and heart.

“Herc, c’mon, please, I can’t—” Raleigh whined, and Yancy awkwardly curled his hand around his erection. It was still only about halfway there; his disability made it difficult to achieve full hardness, let alone achieve it quickly, and he had more sensation on one side of his body and dick than the other. Still, Yancy thumbed at his head and stretched out his free hand to cup Chuck’s heavy erection.

With a groan, Chuck’s good hand came up and held Yancy’s wrist. “I’m gonna come if you do that,” he gasped.

“Bunch of undisciplined children,” Herc rumbled, and Chuck groaned, dick twitching, even as Raleigh gasped out agreement, cock bobbing beneath him as he rocked back onto Herc’s fingers.

After a few more heartbeats, Herc moved back, ushering Raleigh to straddle Yancy’s waist. Yancy wanted to watch Herc take Chuck apart – as much as they all shared a bed, and knew one another, Herc was guaranteed to turn Chuck into a mewling, flushed, debauched mess – but then Raleigh slowly rocked his hips against Yancy’s erection, paying attention to the right side, thumbing Yancy’s nipples.

Chuck whimpered, sweat making his hair dark and sticky, and he tightened his fingers around Yancy’s hand, using Yancy’s hand to jerk off, and then Raleigh was sinking down onto Yancy, and Yancy let himself be swept away by the sensations.

Later, cuddled on one side by Chuck, with Herc on Chuck’s other side and Raleigh draped across like a particularly sweaty and hot blanket, Yancy stared up at the ceiling. He’d have never thought, after losing the ability to walk, the scars, the decreased motor functions in his left hand, that he’d have something like this. That he’d have a home, and people to share it with.

They’d deal with the media. Yancy wasn’t giving this up for the world.


End file.
